Dionysus vs Hades

Recap

Never in Summer League history have two teams finished the season undefeated. And it would only be amazing if they faced each other in the finals. Hestia and Hades were both undefeated coming into last night’s games, and although it’s only a little more than halfway through the season, a boy can hope.

Here’s Chris Park-Thomas with the recap from Hades’ games last night against Dionysus:

Have to give huge credit to Dionysus for playing 5 guys through the first half, and just one more arriving later (Seth was there to captain, but out with injury). We wanted to wear them out, and we ran hard enough, but the guys they had kept it up all night (easy joke goes here) – Derek, Evan, Jordan, Gabe, Patrick… and Thies coming late (oh, grow up already).

Great game tonight. Super fun. Really kind of crazy how the two halves played out NOTHING like each other.

Hades won the flip and we chose to start on offense because we wanted to use the 2-POINT POWER right off the bat. Dionysus countered by calling the STEAL-A-PLAYER power – they chose to take Maria “Paparazzi” from our starting line! Not one of our rostered ladies, “Papa” joined us from the women-sub-pool. Interesting choice, and I never remembered to ask Seth what went into that decision. Maybe he’ll let us know in the comments. I mean, we didn’t have Fish with us, but almost all our other guys were there. So, just like Andy likes it… we went power vs. power. I can say we definitely looked good moving the disc down the field, but something misfired at the endzone. Dionysus took over and converted to score. It the first time this season Hades’ power failed. The streak is over!

Okay, so Dionysus runs off 5 in a row. What can you say? They were running good and hitting their throws. Watching from the sideline, I didn’t have major complaints with how we were moving the disc, but we just seemed to miss a couple throws by just a foot or less… and Dionysus didn’t. But, there you go.

So, it gets to 6-1 (Dionysus) and the Fates intervene to swap the destiny of our two teams. Dionysus starts to miss just a little (an overthrow here, a bobbled disc there), and Hades hits their throws.

Hades takes the next 5 in a row to tie it up. Dionysus scores once. Hades scores twice to close out the half 8-7 (Hades). I’m looking at the scoresheet now, and seeing Armand had 7 of our assists that half. At least 3 (maybe 4) were 50 yard hucks. Incredible.

SIDEBAR: Not saying it affected the course of history or anything, but right before play started on the one point Dionysus scored late in the half, Team Hera from the next field over called the STEAL-A-PLAYER power and took Armand away for that point. As I said, not making any accusations or throwing blame. Just noting for interest.

Anyway, during halftime we figured, “these guys are exhausted”… “just keep running hard”… “stay in their pants on defense and they will throw it away.” And oh, that was quickly proven false.

Where the first half was all about 5 point runs, the second half was a fierce back-and-forth contest. It was tied at 8-8, 9-9, 10-10 … Dionysus takes the lead at 11… Hades takes the lead at 12!

But where’s the exhaustion? We should be smothering them on defense, but they just keep running. Dionysus re-takes the lead at 13!!!

But that’s OK. Hades is back in possession, we work it up to half-field… and that’s when the lights went dark.

… which is how Hades likes it … in the Underworld. –Wait, no. See, that’s what I wrote last time the lights went out, but we were ahead that time. This time, not the case. Whatever, it’s fine. It’s fine. No, really. It’s fine.

It’s fine because it really was a great game by both teams. I don’t mind that we lost by a point. We’ve won plenty of close games, and Dionysus has also won and lost very close ones. Some days it goes one way or the other way. I’m proud of the way we played, and the spirit both teams showed for each other, which we all celebrated at Robin Hood.

So not only does Hades fall for the first time in the season, leaving Hestia as the lone undefeated team. But it also means that now no team is undefeated in power use either. Hades, Hermes and Chronos have had the most success with powers, going 5-1. The only team to not have scored when using a power is Athena, who is 0-4 and didn’t use the powers twice. Every other team have been successful with the powers at least three times. (Dionysus and Hera were both successful last night, which got them both to 3.)

Paparazzi is now the second woman to be selected for the Convert a Player power. And she’s the first woman from the sub pool to get that honor.

That sucks having the disc with the chance to tie when the lights go out. SOOOO frustrating. But as he noted, they were the recipients of the light’s will last time. So life balances things out.

And here’s this from Seth Gillum of Dionysus:

We are up 5-0! We’ve won! Wait, they took half 8-7??? Shit… all is lost. Hold on… Game over 13-12?!?!? What the fuck just happened? What? We won?